I have written a lot about how I have made my way through my troubled life.

I have divulged my struggle with doubt, self-worth, depression, and the feeling of loneliness. Leaning on truth, I have revealed how I learned about faith in the trials and how the Lord’s faithfulness has brought me through. So today I think about my current state of feeling lost and seeking a way out of the rut I have fallen into this past week. What got me here? Where is taking me? Which way do I go?

The saying is that when you hit bottom there is only one way to go, up. What if you aren’t at the bottom because you are somewhere hovering in the space between up and down knowing what the bottom feels like. You are struggling against the waves of depression to pull your head above the oppressive broken emotions that you are wrestling with.

Shaking my head at my troubles right now, I know truth and I trust in that truth.

I know that the Lord makes a way for us who are struggling in the darkness of mental anguish despite our state of mind.  Sometimes I just wish I didn’t have to be in this moment and that I could find an escape hatch much faster than the timing that God has for me in this messy state.

This is where I reflect. In the depression and anxiety that I have felt for most of my life, people have recommended medications, exercise, meditation, yoga, talk therapy, sleep, less sleep, diet, and to point the devil to the door to help control my stinkin’ thinkin.’ As great as all of these pieces of advice may seem or even may work for some, they don’t work for me. They actually won’t work for anyone if you don’t look to the first and greatest healer.

Jehovah Rapha is the God who heals. He doesn’t just heal physically, He heals spiritually. Without the divine healing of our loving Father, we can only get so far before we find ourselves not just in a hole, but at the bottom of a dark pit with little hope.

“If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer.”

Exodus 15:26 ESV

I took the medicines and ate the diets. Exercise is my daily game and meditation on the Lord’s Word is my morning routine. Yoga is out but hiking is in. Talk therapy plays no part when the spiritual thought processes of each person involved isn’t in an even race. Sleep eludes me, and rest seems to gain no ground. The healing comes from the Lord in His time, in His way, through my faith in His plans. All the rest will fall into place if it’s in the plan at hand.

I have been staring up at the sky.

In the middle of my internal strife, a tragic death took place in my church family. A great loss was suffered at the  hand of the mighty ocean. Children, teens and beloved elders all the same were there and witnessed the emotional time when the Lord called our loved one home. I was not present because God convicted me to not attend. I was moved elsewhere out of self-protection and for my children’s sake. The Lord works in wonderous ways. But with such tragedy and disconnect that I have felt, I look to the skies.

You see that every time something changes, a jolt in life, a sacred moment, or a shift, the Lord calls me to look up. I am convicted to stare at the clouds, the wispy moisture in the blue abyss, contemplating the universe and what our loving Father has next for me. I don’t think He wants disconnect, disenchantment or depression to hold me back from living a life pleasing to Him. Yet here I am, sad and lost and dragging five steps behind everyone else.

Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

But I still know the truth. I still hang onto to His healing and truth in the middle of this shift. I look forward to the grand plans that He has waiting in the wing. I look forward to the healing of the church body and for blessing to be poured out through it all.  He is faithful and shines through the darkness of mankind in all ages. My time comes in waves and sometimes I fall into this mode in order to gain insight or to remember to hang on to the goodness of the loving Father.

Oh, Lord, come quickly.